Career? What career?

Posted on May 11, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Bad rhymes, career, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1933, Flower, Petals, Poem, Poetry, Sad, WorkLeave a comment

What is your career plan?

My life is like an open flower

Petals may soon drop

A career I had

But it is gone

Retired and tired I am.

Work over now

Unless I have

To seek

A few hours here

A few more there

To keep going on.

I wish I could restart time

And make a change to life

Perhaps the years

I toiled at work

Would have been better spent.

My life was dull

To some extent

I played the game of life

The early morns

The evenings dark

When I came home again.

I’m glad that I escaped to art

And life began once more.

Clocking on

Posted on April 21, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Clock, clocking on machine, Forty years ago, History, holiday job, Life, Summer, Work, Youth6 Comments

Have you ever clocked on? I did for a few weeks one summer when I got a holiday job. The clock machine we had to use was a big grey box with cards in slots next to it.

I also clocked on for an art project. Each time I went into my studio I clocked on, and off. The cards were collected and turned into an artwork later on.

So seeing this at the museum rang a bell… Some forty year old thought woke up and reminded me of a dirty grey factory floor, oil splashed on the machines, knurling air filters for cars (joining the concertinerd paper together) with two clogged wheels that pressed the ends together to hold them in place before they had cages and the rubberised circles fixed to the top and bottoms, then clock off and go home at the end of a long, boring day. So clocking on? I’ve done that.

Leaving work

Posted on April 20, 2023April 20, 2023 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Change, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1911, History, Life, no regrets, Past, redundant, Time, WorkLeave a comment

Describe a decision you made in the past that helped you learn or grow.

Things happen and suddenly you have to decide what to do. Your life can carry on the same old way or you can adjust it. Mostly though that happens when you get a little older. That’s what happened to me.

I knew I would be OK as I was taking a calculated step, but what I didn’t bank on was Brexit (why?), then the pandemic and now the cost of living crisis, and health issues.

So would I do it again? Yes of course. I know I’m not probably as well off and secure as I would have been, but I know I’m happier. I won’t describe why I left, but I wasn’t happy. Things changed and I could explain, but it’s in the past now. All I know is that I feel more confident, it has definitely helped me grow as a person.

What’s next? I’ll keep trying to make things work. I have to. I wish anyone else who has made a similar decision all the best and good luck.

Phone broken

Posted on December 16, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged call barring, customer care team, engineer, Phone, phone line, plugged in, Work4 Comments

Can’t ring in, can’t ring out – call guardian is blocking all our calls…we had an engineer out who checked the phone lines. As soon as he plugged his own phone in it worked, but when he plugged ours back in. No luck. He rang our phone supplier and asked them what we could do (engineers only work on phone lines, not phones), the woman he spoke to needed to verify us. Could I say when we had the last bill? I didn’t know as hubby pays it. So she went through a low quality verification and asked the engineer his details. Then she said that we should check the settings.? How? There’s a manual on line… I explained I wasn’t happy to go through lots of pages. We finally convinced her the phone needed replacing…. Then she checked the Argos website. We could get a big button phone. I don’t want that, I want the same as we have. I could get three of the right phones from Argos for £125! No we just want one.. We only live in a small house. OK they have the phone for £39.99. We ordered it. The engineer was great but I thought the advisor on the phone was a bit more interested in her own assumptions and didn’t really want to listen to me….

Peony

Posted on June 3, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Cream, Flower, Garden, Gardening, Green, Life, peony, Pink, Plant, Time, Trees, Work4 Comments

Our old peonies didn’t flower this spring but a new peony has come into bloom and its a pale creamy pin. Is a bright spot in a very overgrown jungle! Hubby asked if it was a poppy and I thought it would be until he showed it to me. I don’t even remember planting it.

Gardening takes hard work and effort. I wish I had the energy to do more of it. The garden needs a serious hacking back. Bringing light back in and reducing shade… Its actually quite frightening.

Where have I been?

Posted on May 6, 2022May 8, 2022 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Acrylics, Art, Exhibition, Fine Art, hanging, life Whitfield Centre, Painting, sale, Work2 Comments

Getting ready for the exhibition tomorrow. Painting, adding wires to the back of the paintings. Retouching edges of canvases where I missed bits of paint (painting edges is called ‘gallery wrapping’).

The exhibition and sale is only for one day so I want to make it as good as I can. I have other small paintings to take plus cards and jewellery. I hope I actually sell something.

I’ve published my book!

Posted on April 27, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Book, Design, final major project, Illustration, Life, ma, published, self published, University, Work12 Comments

OK so it’s self published and it’s one copy. I want to find out if I can get it properly published. But it arrived this morning two days early. It wasn’t going to get here till Friday. The roads must have been quiet! It was like Christmas! I kissed it. I cried. I’m so happy with it! It cost way too much, but it backs up all my university work so I’m happy 😊.

Book finished

Posted on April 20, 2022 Posted in Fine Art, UncategorizedTagged Art, Book, Design, Drawing, final major project, Illustration, Jpegs, Pictures, Struggle, tiff files, Work4 Comments

Today I put childrens book together in a site called Blurb. I had saved all my files as .tif files and it needed them as .Jpegs so I spent HOURS swapping them. A lot of the jpeg files were not able to open. It meant that I had to change some of the pictures for different ones. I’ve ordered a one off copy for my course. The only problem is that it might arrive late so I’m going to have to take the photos to a printer and mock up the book as well.

Working hard

Posted on April 19, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Digital drawing, Digital manipulation, Drawing, final major project, Tired, WorkLeave a comment

I’m trying hard to finish my final major project. Here’s a quick photo of one of my sets of pages. I can’t show too much detail as it’s a work in progress and you never know it might get published. What is the phrase? This is my copyright © and I do not allow its use without my express permission. That said I need a rest!

No lateral flow tests

Posted on April 4, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Covid, Illness, increased infection, lateral flow tests, Life, live with it, Masks, one in thirteen, Work1 Comment

If you live in England you can no longer get free lateral flow tests, this despite covid 19 infections being very high (about one in thirteen). I think it’s stupid, we are supposed to ‘live with it’ (die with it?) and yet Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are not ending it yet. Why do our government think this is OK. I think it’s to save money. You now have to pay. All the people on low incomes with higher bills to pay won’t be able to afford them. People are going into work with covid. It is spreading. This is stupid.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Work